Plenary Speakers

Prof. Sir. David Payne

Optoelectronics Research Center at the University of Southampton, UK

Lecture title: Optical Fibres: The Next Generation

Prof Sir David Payne is a Professor of Photonics and Director of the Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) and the Zepler Institute at the University of Southampton. He has published over 650 Conference and Journal papers and is co-inventor on over 40 patents.

Over the last forty years, he has made numerous key contributions in optical fibre communications and laser technology. His work in fibre fabrication in the 1970s resulted in most of the special fibres used today, including the revolutionary erbium-doped fibre amplifier (EDFA) and kilowatt-class fibre lasers for manufacturing and defence. He is a Fellow of the UK Royal Society, the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America, the UK IET and the UK IoP. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded York Technologies, (now PK Technology Inc.), Fibercore, SENSA (now part of Schlumberger) and SPI Lasers plc (now part of the Trumpf Gruppe). He was the 2014 IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Awardee.